The loss of someone you care about can be one of life’s most stressful events. It is not easy to cope after someone dies, but coping with the loss is vital to your mental health. Don’t postpone, deny or run from the pain. Imagine you had a physical wound. You would give that your immediate attention. The same needs to be done for our emotional wounds. The best thing you can do is allow yourself to grieve. The only way out is through it. When people interfere with grief, they interfere with the body’s natural recovery.

There are many ways to deal with loss:

• Share your feelings with those close to you or with those who may understand what you are feeling and experiencing.
• Be gentle, forgiving and patient with yourself.
• Seek outside help when necessary.
• Take care of your health.
• Comfort others while being comforted. Spend time grieving and mourning your losses. It’s ok to show others how the loss has affected you.  People need to see they are not alone with these feelings.
• Take time for self-nurturing. Do things that feel good to you.
• Use expressive therapies such as journaling, reading, meditation, making a scrap book, memory box, or creating a scholarship in the person’s name.
• Give yourself permission to feel rotten!! When you lose someone you care about, someone who you may have worked next to everyday for many years, you may feel an array of emotions which including pain, dismay, confusion, devastation or anger.

Helping others grieve:

• Share the sorrow.
• Don’t offer false comfort. It doesn’t help the grieving person when you say “it was for the best”. Just listen and be a shoulder to cry on. It may not always seem like enough, but for that person it is everything.
• Be patient. It can take a long time to heal from a loss. Make yourself available to talk and listen even months after the death.
• Offer practical help such as cooking, running errands or babysitting.
• Respond with sensitivity and consideration. Understand it may take a long time for a person, department or situation to be the same or run how it use to.

Websites and other online support:

www.Griefspeaks.com

www.griefnet.org

www.nmha.org